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11-16-2021, 03:47 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-16-2021, 03:48 PM by
Papa John.)
The worst Stanford football team in my lifetime--other than 2006--was the 1983 team. The Play had ruined John Elway's final game, true freshman John Paye was our QB and our opening game was versus #2 Oklahoma. We lost 14-27, but it wasn't for lack of effort. I remember Paul Wiggin, or maybe someone else, declaring that Stanford was the best 0-1 team in college football.
Then we traveled to Illinois and lost, but the defense kept it close. A Stanford coach declared that we were the best 0-2 team in the land.
We came back home and lost to SJSU. I think someone muttered that we were the best 0-3 team in the land.
Then we lost to ASU, UCLA and Washington before squeaking out a win over #19 Arizona. Which was followed by losses to OSU, Oregon, USC and Cal.
But back to the topic at hand. Per wikipedia, home attendance was:
62,778 vs #2 Oklahoma (Stanford 0-0 going into the game)
68,201 vs SJSU (0-2)
55,804 vs UCLA (0-4)
40,208 vs Arizona (0-6)
31,420 vs Oregon (1-8)
84,804!!!!! vs Cal (1-9)
Of course, this was the Big Game immediately following The Play. GaryT was featured prominently in the halftime show, so that must also have been a factor in the impressive rebound in attendance.
And I'm sure that Stanford was the best 1-10 team in college football that year.
If there's one thing people have learned in Berkeley, it's that you can't put "Cal football" and "Rose Bowl" in the same sentence. The words just don't fit. You'd be better off linking "covered wagons" with "Mars travel." (Bruce Jenkins, Cal '70, SF Chronicle, Nov. 11, 2017)